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Saturday, 10 May 2014

Strawberry Cake with Fresh Strawberry Icing

If there's fruit in a cake, that means it's healthy, right? I think that's my new philosophy. It can't be unhealthy if it has a tiny proportion of one of your 5 a day in, definitely. Five slices are justified in the name of getting a whole portion of fruit. Even if it isn't healthy (which it isn't), this cake is still damn good. Jane came home with some super fresh and juicy looking strawberries, and instead of eating them like a normal human, they looked perfect to be baked into a cake - I was correct in that assumption.

I couldn't be bothered to do much research into how other people had tackled a strawberry cake, and just went with my general instincts. The result is a great tasting sponge - normal vanilla with chunks of strawberry swimming about that make it amazingly moist, with a strawberry icing that actually tastes of strawberries. I, for one, am sold. It makes a great change to chocolate, and is a perfect cake for baking to belatedly welcome spring (if you can call this weather spring).

In other news, and because I don't know what else to say about a cake, I 'finished' school this week! I say 'finished' because I still have another week, yet we had our muck up day and 'graduation' ceremony this week, due to the amount of people doing exams next week. It really was a lovely way to end 7 years at my school, and our muck up day was really fun - roller skating around school squirting people with water (until the roller skates were banned by teachers), and fulfilling a lifelong dream to see the inside of the staff room were some highlights! Once exams are over, I think the fact I'll be leaving all my friends will start to sink in! I'll be baking plenty of cake to eat my feelings...

Recipe (serves 8-10):

Strawberry Cake:

8oz butter

8oz caster sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

8oz self-raising flour

15 small/10 large chopped strawberries

Preheat the oven to 180oC. Grease and line two 8" cake tins.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla.

Continue to beat until the batter is extremely light - around 3 or 4 minutes.

Sift in flour, and fold it in.

Gently mix in the chopped strawberries.

Divide between the two prepared tins.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Fresh Strawberry Icing:

10-15 chopped strawberries/100ml strawberry puree

350g (or more) icing sugar, sifted

60g butter

Blend the strawberries into a puree in a blender/food processor.

Beat all the ingredients together until well combined.

Spread on your cake! The icing will not be the most solid/thick of all icings, but it will set more over time.